Reading & Weeding

Thanks to Matthew Winner and this month's Shelf Challenge, I am reading and weeding! Unfortunately, my blogging is falling behind!  I do suffer from self-diagnosed ADD, which is why, while I have tried to work on my blog, I have also backed up my phone, looked for graduation announcements for my daughter, checked email, etc!   :) So, although I am suppose to be reading the books on my "N" shelf of the Everybody section, I somehow weeded approximately 50 books in the Fiction section!  Anyway, here are some finds from the Everybody section:

Book #7

I found Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie's Missing Brain by Scott Nash to be a picture book that would definitely appeal to the older crowd!  There a a lot of words on the page and the vocabulary is more advanced. Tuff Fluff is a detective living in a stuffed animal world. He is trying to help Duckie find his missing brain. In the story, there is a distinction between the stuffed and the bean bag animals, so they go to Beantown for clues. It is a fun book and could be used when teaching descriptive writing. It has only been checked out once in the past 3 years. I am now wondering if a lot of these books aren't finding their way into the hands of readers because the "N" shelf is on the bottom.  I created a "Books from the Bottom Shelf" display recently to try to circulate some of the treasures students aren't stooping for!  ;)  I think I will encourage students to find a book from the bottom shelf this week and see what they find! 

Book #9

One thing I have enjoyed is finding books and immediately passing them on to a teacher to use in their classroom!  King of the Playground by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was passed on to our Counselor, Ms. Fuller!  She has made bullying her focus this year, and although this was an older book it is still a great one to use during her lessons!  I could see teachers pairing this with The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill. 

And then I came to Cindy Neuschwander's math picture books. These are great to introduce and reinforce math concepts! Marilyn Burns has created math activites to accompany some of these books. The three I read focused on multiplication, capacity and patterns. I will take these to classrooms for teachers to use with last minute reviews for STAAR testing! 

Books 15, 16, & 17

Books #21 & 22

It has been a great week of reading, and I am definitely feeling good about the books I am weeding!  I can't wait to see how much better the shelves look at the end of the month!  Here are a couple that are being retired!